Are Occupy Oakland Members in Favor of Sex Trafficking?

Editor’s note: the following post contains graphic language and video. Discretion is advised.

On June 13, apparent members of Occupy Oakland staged a counter-protest at the H.E.A.T. (Human Exploitation and Trafficking) conference to end human exploitation and trafficking.

Why on earth would they do that? While the Occupy movement has long struggled with having a cohesive message, some of the signs indicated that rescuing girls from lives of prostitution constitutes racism, and that the police and “patriarchy” shouldn’t have control over such matters.

A Facebook page dedicated to the event explains: “The H.EAT. conference is a conference of pigs and their nonprofit lackeys to increase the harassment, imprisonment, marginalization and criminalization of sex workers. Fronting as a conference against ‘child trafficking,’ this conference brings pigs and nonprofits together to develop policing strategies that line their pockets…”